Movie Night: Fright Night

Tonight I went to see Fright Night tonight with my friends of the Phoenix Movie Bears. Upon leaving the movie theatre, I had one main thought in my mind… Why the hell was it over 100° out when it was almost 10pm? Damn!

OK On to more serious things like the actual review. I was all prepared to hate this movie. Honestly, I am not too fond of the new fad of remaking old movies instead of trying to think of something even somewhat original, even if it’s just a sequel. While I still wish they had done something new, I was still pleasantly surprised for the most part. Anton Yelchin, this iteration’s Charlie Brewster, does a decent job in the role of the hero but not as believable as I would have wished. The incredibly sexy Colin Farrell plays an incredibly creepy Jerry. The way he plays with the other characters, including facial expressions and body language is great. “Evil” Ed is played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, probably best known for his role of Red Mist in Kickass, comes off more wimpy and annoying than evil. The character in the original movie had a creepiness of his own in his uniqueness while this one was so nerdy that even I wanted to pick on him. The biggest surprise came in the role of Peter Vincent. Unlike in the first movie where he was an older man who had gone well past his time in the world of old horror movies, this Peter was much younger. He’s still a performer. The second purprise came when I realized who was actually playing the part — David Tennant, the second Doctor from the current incarnation of Doctor Who. I couldn’t help seeing the Doctor throughout the movie even though the character was quite different. For one thing, he had a much fuzzier chest which was nice. He plays his character well and the modern version is interesting in it’s own way.

But now we might get on to the good part. Now we move on to the….

* * * SPOILERS * * *

Probably some of the best and funniest lines come from Peter Vincent. When Charlie and his girlfriend Amy show up to get Peter’s help, he says he does not want to be part of their “Scooby Gang”, a reference to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show, which got a number of chuckles from the audience. Secondly, after showing up at Jerry’s house to help Charlie, Peter says “I’m a good date — get me drunk and I’ll try anything,” The imagery of that for a guy as handsome as David Tennant is quite interesting. *evil grin* Amy gets a good one too though when she grabs a cun to shoot Jerry and it fires silver bullets and he comments “For werewolves”. She then sees a chalice filled with water which she splashes in his face and says “For vampires.” Interesting points are made about the concepts of religious icons and the power of faith behind them when it comes to vampires. There’s a lot of use of more historic/mythical items, like the stake blessed by St. Michael that allowed him to cure all the vampires created by Jerry which was a bit of a co out way to get to a happy ending.

Overall, I’d say go see it. While they kept a lot of names and such the same and a few circumstances, things were still pretty interesting, especially when one vampire died unexpectedly. Oh, and don’t bother waiting for a scene after the credits. There is none.

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1 Response

  1. rose says:

    I loved the original Fright Night, and thought it was one of the best horror movies in those times. I haven’t seen it in awhile, so before I went and saw the new one I rented it.. So when I saw the new one I was very impress by how they remade it. I thought they did a wonderful job on this remake. It’s definitely one of the best remakes I have seen.

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